Chapter 982: This Is His Profession
Normally, they might hunt the sheep. However, none of them had the heart to do it now. They continued moving forward.
“No birds are flying in the sky and no beasts walking on the land. You see nothing but emptiness around you. Everything is unpredictable. You can only see things when you look at the sun and find the way using human bones.” The journey that the monk from Eastern Jin, Fa Shi, described was the journey the Xueyu unit was going through now. Nothing could be seen on the snow mountain. As they walked under the mountain, everything seemed like fine grains of dust, small and insignificant.
“Old Luo is here.” After passing through a messy pile of weathered rocks, Xia Jinyuan saw four rocks being decked neatly. The smallest rock was pointing towards the ice mountain that was 6000 meters above sea level.
The person leading the way was reliable. During the internal war, Old Luo escaped to China with his eldest son. This ice mountain was the path he took.
After that, he went back to fetch his wife and his three remaining children. He walked through the ice mountain again. When he came back, he took the same path. He went through the path four times so he was very familiar with this route.
The group of seven people moved towards the snow mountain like stowaways. The further they went in, the deeper the snow got. When it was downhill, they tied the wooden skis on their legs and flew down the mountain valley.
At first, Ye Jian’s speed was very slow. She relaxed her upper body and put her weight forward and downward while bending her knees slightly… She looked straight ahead and pushed the ski poles back and outward… She didn’t even need Xia Jinyuan’s guidance. After she went up, she started skiing directly.
Ye Jian wasn’t well-versed with skiing so, under Xia Jinyuan’s protection, she arrived at the bottom a few minutes later than the other members. Before she reached the bottom, she saw a few horses raising their legs in the snow… Horse? Why were there horses?
Xia Jinyuan raised her eyebrows. He rushed ahead of Ye Jian and did a beautiful spin before stopping beside a shepherd.
This was their guide, Old Luo. Old Luo was from Tajikistan. When he saw Xia Jinyuan, he immediately opened his arms wide and welcomed him. He didn’t look like an elder. He felt more like a brother.
After a few greetings, Old Luo looked at Ye Jian and pointed to the seven horses he brought. “If you told me earlier, I will have prepared one more horse.”
“No need for that. This is good.” He was still able to bring horses that could walk in the ice mountain. This was already a huge surprise for Xia Jinyuan. Having one less horse wasn’t a problem.
Pigeon had already climbed onto a horse. “Let’s make use of the daylight and hurry on our journey.” They would still be traveling at night but it was better to travel more in the day than at night.
After passing through the 6000-meters high snow mountain, they came to another country. At the end of October, the sunlight at the Wakhan Corridor was still bright. The bad weather hadn’t arrived. From morning till night, the soldiers stepped on the snow and braved the cold icy wind that slashed their skin painfully. They persevered until they reached the war zone.
The adaptability of a Special Forces soldier to harsh conditions wasn’t something ordinary soldiers could imagine. They could stay in the snowy mountains for a year just like the locals if they had to.
At night, the horses weren’t able to move like in the day. They walked on the grey stone pavement covered with snow until their legs turned numb from the cold. When the blood reached their hearts, it was cold too.
The humans couldn’t rest and the horses couldn’t rest either. In the day, they could ride horses so their 24-hour journey got shortened to less than 20 hours.
At first, Ye Jian walked in the middle. At 4 am, she was still walking in the middle. She strapped the fur glove Old Luo made to her thigh. She pulled one leg out of the snow and took a step forward. Then she pulled her other leg out and took a step forward. She rested for less than half an hour throughout the entire journey.